The United States of America for decades has benefited from the presence of foreign born students who study at its universities and upon graduation find jobs or develop their own business enterprises. At many American universities, teaching assistants in fields such as science or math are often individuals who were born abroad because it increasingly has become difficult to secure enough American born young scientists and math people. A recent study by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, reveals that Shanghai is now attracting about one-fourth of all returning Chinese students who studied abroad. There are now 75,000 of these individuals working in Shanghai either for a business or one they created. It is estimated they have founded about 4,000 business enterprises with a total investment of $400 million. It is also estimated that 60% of the faculty at Shanghai Academy of Science and the Shanghai Academy of Engineering are former students who studied overseas.
There was a time when a Chinese student who attended an American university remained in the United States and obtained a job, but those days may well be over. The madness of the American economy over the past few years in which financial institutions only thought about money rather than upon building vast new business enterprises is reaping its reward in foreign born students going home.